Winter (Revision 970)

Winter

The season symbol for snow is a snowflake, which is the only logical choice. Is there anything more nostalgic than snow? It makes a perfect compliment to those cold nights where you sit by the fire, sipping hot cocoa, and exchanging gifts with loved ones. What could be more peaceful?

Outerwear

With the temperatures plummeting, Sims struggle to stay warm. Like with Summer, the changing temperatures can cause some serious damage. To counter it, there is now a sixth attire for your Sims called outerwear.

If starting a new family in Create A Sim, you'll need to assign your Sim's outerwear while making up the rest of his outfit anyway. If you're playing an established family after installing Seasons, your Sims will have some default (and relatively random) outerwear already so they're not caught unprepared. To customize your Sims' outerwear attire, simply have him interact with any dresser and choose "Plan Outfit" as if you were changing any other attire.

Outerwear alone won't repel the elements. If your Sim is outside for too long, he may freeze and fall over; if he stays like that for too long, he'll die! If a Sim finds himself in that state, any other Sim can run over and thaw him out before it's too late. To avoid it, try to keep your Sims inside.

Dormant Crops

Crops can't survive in the winter (and some, such as the banana tree, can't survive in Fall). Rather than the crops dying, they'll simply become "dormant," which you'll see if you mouse over them.

Dormant crops won't die unless they were already dead, but they won't have to be watered or otherwise tended. It will give your gardening Sims a little time off, but a full-time gardener also won't be bringing in any income. Once Spring comes, crops will start growing again and must be tended, though any dead plants will remain dead.

If you have The Sims 3 Supernatural installed, you can counteract the cold by buying pots for inside your home. Pots can't take trees or other large crops, but you could still grow almost any other fruit or vegetable (including the profitable Life Fruit and Flame Fruit) indoors without problems.

Note that if Supernatural is installed, your outdoor crops are still at risk to be destroyed by a zombie attack. This will kill the crops even if they were dormant at the time. You'll want to protect your crops or even focus exclusively on indoor pots if you have full-time gardeners.

Decorating for the Season

Pyro made a Jack-o-lantern to celebrate Spooky Day during Fall, and he's still feeling pretty festive as we come to his favorite holiday. He wants to decorate the house with some festive lights, but he's too lazy to leave the sofa.

Luckily, your Sims can decorate their roofs without having to get up! First, make sure you can see your walls, then interact with your front door. You can use any Sim you wish for this, even if they're not home. Then, simply click the "Holiday House Lights..." command. You can decorate the lining of your roof with strips or hanging lights in a single color, a variety of colors, or even custom colors! Hanging lights doesn't bring any direct benefit, but it can fulfill your Sim's wishes.

There are no Christmas trees, Menorahs, or other holiday-like items and decorations that ship with the game. However, you can download many of them for free on official Sims 3 website, provided you have an account with the game. When you're signed up, here to see the Sims 3 holiday decor page. The "Happy Holidays Presents" and "More Holiday Presents" packages feature all you need to celebrate winter holidays, and those two packages are completely free.

In the meantime, the snow will pile up and stick to any objects you have outside. This gives you the perfect chance to decorate your front yard with some snowmen or snow angels, and your whole family can join in while you build them. Pyro and Pete, for some strange reason, have decided to build their snowman on the top of the back tower despite the order being given from the front yard.

Your Sims have a progression system when it comes to building snowmen. They essentially have experience points in snowman-building, though any such progress bars are invisible. However, as Sims build snowmen, they can build different types of snowmen. As you build your first one, the exact type will be chosen randomly; once it's built, and Sims who built it can build that type manually from then on. To fully experience building all the different types of snowmen, you'll probably need to extend the length of winter or have your Sims live longer to experience several winters.

Winter Festival

Without much family time this year, the Falkon brothers decide to check out the Winter Festival together. Besides, there's a lot to do for this season, and this way they can pool their tickets together for bigger prizes!

As you may have noticed, some activities are common among all the seasons. Pyro and Pete get a family picture taken for a greeting card, and Pete again wants to get his face painted. (Pyro has no desire for such nonsense!) After that, the guys decide to skate around the indoor ice rink before having a snowball fight in the little snowball arena.

Skating and snowball fights each have experience bars to dictate how well your Sim performs the activities. Ice skating in winter shares its experience bar with roller skating in Summer, just as snowball throwing shares its experience with water balloon throwing. Getting better at any of those activities brings no direct benefit, but your Sim will have more fun with it in general. When skating experience improves, your Sims will skate faster and perform more tricks, or at least wipe out less often. Sims with the Athletic trait tend to learn skating and snowball or water balloon faster than other Sims.

There's a similar system at play for snowboarding, which is one of the few activities not available in the Riverview festival lot due to space restrictions. Rinks and even a snowboarding half-pipe are available from Buy Mode, or can be bought through the festival vendors. They're large objects, but if you have enough room on your home lot, they make for fantastic ways to get your Sims' Fun meters filled. Your Sims will still gain proficiency with the activity, though your experience gains are slower out of the proper season.

You'll need to take advantage of the festival while it's there. Large snow piles will shut down most outside objects. Pyro has a driving range in the backyard, but can't use it due to all the snow on the ground. This problem can persist through early Spring as long as the temperature stays cold. You may have limited options for socialization and fun unless the interior of the house is pretty well stocked.